


We were built to fall apart (and back together)

by SmilinStar



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-16 23:42:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3506996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmilinStar/pseuds/SmilinStar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fear is the first thing she feels in a long time. And it's not for her. It's for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We were built to fall apart (and back together)

**Author's Note:**

> Post 6x15 fic, based on speculation for the next few episodes, but written before we got the flood of all those new spoilers/photos, so basically, probably way off, but I had fun writing this nevertheless. T. Swift is just the gift that keeps on giving. Title from Out of the Woods.

\-----

It's like she's been standing on a sheet of ice this entire time.

 

Fragile, dangerous and unpredictable.

 

It's no surprise really when it finally gives way without warning.

 

Tiny little knives carve into her skin as the cold hits everywhere all at once. The shock of it has her lips opening up in a gasp, and the water wastes no time in rushing in and flooding her lungs until she's spluttering and can't _breathe._

It's fear.

 

Fear is the first thing she feels in a long time.

 

And it's not for her.

 

It's for him.

 

He stands there in the corner, face half hidden in shadows. His eyes a dark blood red, veins spreading out like vines along his cheekbones and his lips twisted up in a stained smile.

 

The body drops to the floor like dead weight.

 

The smile doesn't leave his lips as he casually wipes away the corners of his mouth with a thumb, wastes not a drop as he licks it away.

 

“Stefan,” she says, and she hates the way her voice wavers, “What have you done?”

 

He moves across the room like the monstrous predators they all are, and she feels every bit like his prey.

 

She's backed up against the wall, hands clenched by her sides, nails digging into the skin of her palms. But she stays firm, stands tall, raises her head and meets his blank stare with a defiant challenge.

 

It amuses him, she can tell. It's the way he shakes his head a little, and tilts it to the side with a grin on his face.

 

“Oh Caroline,” he breathes out, towering over her. He rests his hands on the wall above her head, body solid and a mere few centimetres from hers, and blocks her in with nowhere to run. “I thought this was what you wanted.

 

“I thought,” he continues, his eyes roaming over every inch of her face and then slowly down the length of her body, “You wanted me to let go, join you, have a little fun.”

 

His eyes come back up to meet hers, and she feels like he's just slipped off her daylight ring and her skin is burning up in the sun.

 

She's afraid.

 

But not of him.

 

She knows the stories. The Ripper of Monterey. She knows just how much Stefan abhors that side of him, how he tries to hide it away under layers and layers of self-hatred and guilt. She knows that it frightens him, that one day he won't be strong enough to fight it, that he'll be permanently eclipsed and lost to it.

 

She's afraid.

 

_For him._

“Well, I've changed my mind.”

 

He raises his brow, leans in a little closer, “Have you now?”

 

Guilt.

 

Guilt is the second thing she feels in a long time.

 

She did this.

 

She did this to him.

 

“Yes,” she says, tilting her head up, “Yes, I have.”

 

His lips are a hairbreadth away from hers, and she can almost taste him as he whispers, “That's too bad.”

 

She makes the first move.

 

It's desperation, fear and guilt all tangled together, hardly recognisable, and impossible to know where one starts and the other begins.

 

She pushes up on her toes, and closes that distance, presses her lips hard against his.

 

He grins against them. The bastard enjoying his win as she gives in.

 

He pushes back, her head hitting the wall as he wrestles control from her. His mouth is hot against hers, lips bruising. One hand snakes it way around the bottom edge of her blouse and brands the bare skin of her back as the other grabs her own wandering hand and raises it up above her head and holds it there.

 

She can barely breathe. He's everywhere. Hard and heavy pressing into her.

 

But she can give as good as she gets as she bites down. His responding growl sends a jolt through her, curling her toes in her boots.

 

His lips drop to her neck, and he sucks hard in retaliation, before soothing it away with his tongue and the brush of his lips.

 

She's too drunk on him to notice the shift.

 

To notice when his lips find her mouth again, they're not as forceful.

 

To notice when the hand gripping hers above her head slackens, and he ever so slowly opens up his palm against hers and entwines their fingers.

 

To notice when his kisses gentle and all he's doing is breathing her in.

 

He pulls away and she opens her eyes to find _him_ gone.

 

There's still the slightest of a red tinge to his eyes, but it's lust of another kind. And there's something else there she's seen on his face many times before, something he's tried to explain but she never wanted to listen.

 

But it's not just that, she sees.

 

Guilt.

 

She sees that too.

 

She knows, because she'll recognise it anywhere.

 

And just like that, she feels herself plunging back down into that crevice of ice cold water and it's painful. Ever so painful.

 

She pushes against his chest and he stumbles a few steps back.

 

The guilt on his face now overwhelming.

 

She sees it now.

 

The body on the floor, breathing away, barely a scratch on it, surface wounds and drying blood.

 

She looks up at him, and sees something else.

 

“Nicely played,” she says.

 

“Caroline, I . . .”

 

She doesn't let him finish, “Congratulations,” she says over the lump in her throat, and a shrug of her shoulders, “I'm back.”

 

The tears don't come until much later.

 

And once they start, they don't stop.

 

Not for a long time.

 

 

\-----

 

 

“I don't see what the problem is.”

 

Of course he doesn't.

 

Stefan shakes his head, and thinks again why he made this decision to come to Damon of all people and have this discussion. Not when it was his brother's words in the first place that had led him here.

 

“So,” Damon continues, waving the spatula in his hand around, “you had to be a little devious and Machiavellian and sure your plan was risky as hell cos we all know what you're like with self-control, or rather lack of it, but it worked didn't it? You got Blondie to switch it back on. Congratulations brother, it was a stroke of genius. Now go and kiss the girl.”

 

He tries not to react, but the guilt claws at him and he clenches his jaw with the words.

 

Damon's too busy flipping pancakes to notice.

 

“I manipulated her into turning it back on. I used how she feels, felt, and-”

 

“Blah, blah, blah!” Damon mouths, snapping his hands like puppets, “Stefan, listen, there is no other way to get someone to flip it back. You did what had to be done. She'll forgive you.”

 

_You did what had to be done._

 

It's that that troubles him.

 

He had walked a fine line and he alone knows how easy it is for him to fall back into darkness and let the Ripper take over, just how easily he could have succumbed and how hard he had to fight to stay afloat.

 

But if he had had to, he would have let it take over.

 

He realises now, he literally would have done anything to get her back.

 

And if he hadn't been able to explain just what it is he feels for her before, he sure as hell can now.

 

It must show on his face, because Damon is shaking his head at him and rolling his eyes in exasperation. Sliding the pancake on to a plate, he points the pan in the direction of the door, and motions with a tilt of his head, “Off you go.”

 

He claps him on the back on his way out, “Thanks for the talk Damon.”

 

“As ever, my door is always closed, but do help yourself.”

 

 

\-----

 

 

She's wholly unprepared for the rush of emotions that hit her all at once.

 

The guilt nags at her. For so many things. For all of what she did under the haze of a lack of humanity, for switching it off in the first place and knowing that her mom, wherever she was, must be so disappointed in her weakness, and for all the guilt she never really processed about not being by her side in her final moments.

 

It doesn't stop with guilt though.

 

She had thought switching it off, and putting some time between what had happened would mean she wouldn't have to deal with the grief, that maybe it wouldn't hurt so bad once she finally did switch it back on.

 

But she'd been wrong.

 

She knows that now.

 

The emptiness aches and she knows it'll overwhelm her if she lets it.

 

Just as much as she knows, she can't escape it, that switching it off was never the solution.

 

She's learnt her lesson now.

 

“Caroline, what do you want to do with this?”

 

Bonnie's voice breaks her out of her thoughts, and she lets a small smile grace her lips at one of the good things to come out of her flipping her switch back on.

 

She can finally appreciate having her best friend back.

 

“Throw it.”

 

Bonnie scrunches up her nose as she looks down at the ratty old sweatshirt in her hand, “Really? I don't know, it's kind of cute.”

 

Caroline shakes her head, “I can't hold on to everything. You're supposed to be helping, not making it harder. Be brutal, remember?”

 

Bonnie nods, “Right,” and then promptly dumps it on the throw pile.

 

Somehow having her friends around her to do this makes the task easier.

 

It also keeps her mind from straying to a certain someone else.

 

The house, everything in it, as hard as it is, she knows what needs to be done.

 

Him? She has no idea what to do or how to feel.

 

There's a knock on the front door, and she hears Elena call out from downstairs, “I'll get it!” And somehow she just knows who she'll find on the other side.

 

She piles the last of her books in the cardboard box and listens in.

 

“Stefan?”

 

“Hi.”

 

Elena sighs, “Stefan, you can't-”

 

“I just want to talk to her.”

 

She can hear the desperation in his voice. She's been dodging his phone calls for days, warring with herself as to how she should be feeling.

 

Furious, because he'd so easily manipulated her and her feelings.

 

Annoyed, because was she really that easy to read?

 

Frightened, that he would even risk it in the first place, and _what? For her?_

 

Confused, because _why_ would he?

 

But worst of all, it all just adds to this festering hope building inside her, and on top of everything else, it's not something she can deal with. At least not right now.

 

“Stefan,” Elena starts, and she can hear the apology in those two syllables, “Just give her some time.”

 

He sighs, and the defeat in his tone sits heavy in her gut and it almost makes her want to fly down those stairs and . . . and then . . . and then she doesn't know what. And so she stops herself at the doorway, her grip on the frame turning her knuckles white, her breath caught in her throat as she waits.

 

Waits as he makes his choice.

 

Ignore or listen.

 

It's no surprise which he chooses.

 

The door closes behind him, and she hears Elena's footsteps up the stairs.

 

“You okay?” Bonnie asks.

 

She nods.

 

Neither of them believe her as they pull her into a hug.

 

Which is fine since she doesn't believe herself either.

 

 

\-----

 

 

Her eyes are as red as the blood dripping from the corner of her mouth, and he can do nothing but watch it slide down onto her chin before she licks it a way with the swipe of her tongue.

 

All he feels is hunger.

 

Hunger for blood.

 

Hunger for her.

 

It burns through his veins, strikes him down, rendering him immobile, stuck where he is.

 

She walks up to him, all strong and graceful long limbs.

 

She flattens a hand against his hip, and peers up at him.

 

“It's a shame,” she says, voice low, soaked in warning, as she raises her other hand and runs her fingers along the veins on his face, “you thought this would work.

 

“Nice try,” she whispers, and surprises him by pressing her lips to his, and catching his lower lip between her teeth as she pulls away, “But I like you better like this.”

 

She steps back and turns on her heels, doesn't spare him a second glance as she steps over the body in her path as if it's nothing.

 

“Are you coming?” she asks before walking out the door, not waiting for his answer.

 

He follows without thought, the voice screaming in his head getting more frantic and louder.

 

Louder and louder until it snaps and he's sitting bolt upright in his bed, panting, struggling for breath.

 

Reaching out blindly, he pulls on the cord of his bedside lamp and runs his hands up and down his face and back through his hair.

 

A nightmare.

 

It was just a nightmare.

 

He takes another deep steadying breath, before swinging his legs around the side of his bed.

 

It's eerily silent in the dead of night.

 

It's only if he concentrates that he can hear the faint breathing as both Damon and Elena sleep on unaware down the hall.

 

And so it's no surprise that the buzz of his phone as it vibrates on the night stand just then is amplified in the stillness, and his heart pounds along with it.

 

He grabs at it and is struck dumb by the message.

 

_Are you awake?_

_Yes,_ he texts back after a moment.

 

_Can we talk?_

_Now?_ He asks, and then almost slaps his own forehead for doing so, but it's too late because he's already pressed send.

 

_If that's okay?_

_Yeah. Yep, that's fine._

There's a long pause before the phone lights up again and he's left holding his breath, and wondering, now what?

 

_I'm outside,_ she texts back fifteen seconds later. And no, he doesn't count.

 

He doesn't really give himself time to process it as he just grabs at the first shirt he sees and pulls it on over his white vest, and slips quietly down the stairs barefooted.

 

He opens the front door, and finds her standing there, back to him, arms folded across her chest, staring out onto the grounds of the Salvatore estate.

 

He lets the door close softly behind him as he comes to stand next to her.

 

It feels like forever since he last saw _her._

 

She has her thick, dark grey cardigan on over what looks like her pyjamas. Her hair is loose and wavy around her shoulders, and when she turns her head to look at him and whispers, “Hi,” her eyes are the bluest of blues and it's enough for the knot in his chest to come undone, and the last remnants of his nightmare to fade away.

 

“Hi,” he answers back.

 

She glances up at his hair and there's a smile pulling at the corner of her lips, and he thinks it suits her so much better than the glisten of red that haunted him behind closed eyelids.

 

“Nice hair,” she says.

 

“Nice PJs,” he counters back, and she actually blushes.

 

“I couldn't sleep.”

 

He runs a hand through his hair, and only succeeds in making it look messier than it already had been, “Neither could I.”

 

“How come?” she asks, turning her face back to the grounds.

 

He's not sure how much he should say. How far he should push. Not when this is the first time Caroline's actively sought him out since switching it back on.

 

“Bad dream.”

 

She looks up at him, “I'm sorry.”

 

“Not your fault.”

 

“No?” she asks, and he's in awe of just how well she reads him.

 

“No.”

 

She leans forward, hands pressing down on the rough stone, face up towards the night sky and he can't take his eyes off of her.

 

She breathes out, slow and steady, “I think I was always meant to switch it off. I think I always would have wondered and I needed to figure it out on my own.”

 

He turns away and looks up at whichever star has caught her attention.

 

“I don't blame you,” she continues, “You shouldn't blame yourself.”

 

“For what?” Because there's a lot he blames himself for.

 

“All of it,” she answers because she knows him that well, “You were only ever honest about how you felt, and you only did what you thought you had to to pull me back from the brink, and I can't stay mad at you for that.”

 

The short laugh from his mouth surprises them both, and he stands there shaking his head and staring at her in disbelief.

 

For as well as she can read him, it's only now he realises she still doesn't get it.

 

“Caroline,” he says, looking back down at her, “I was never honest about how I felt. Not with you, not with myself because I never understood it until it was too late.”

 

She's staring at him wide eyed and there's hope shining from them, and he only recognises it now because he thinks he's looking at her the same way.

 

He pushes his fears aside and reaches for her hand, entwines their fingers and releases another breath when she doesn't pull away.

 

“Caroline,” he says again, and he doesn't think he'll ever tire of it, “What I feel, for you, it's big, and it's scary and I can't put it into words, which I know, coming from me-”

 

“Is crazy,” she interrupts, and there's a beautiful smile on her face, and he knows, he just knows they're finally on the same page.

 

“Is crazy,” he nods with a smile of his own, “But it's _real._ It's probably the realest, truest thing I've felt in a hundred and sixty years, and I'm sorry I didn't, that I couldn't-”

 

She doesn't let him finish as she steals away the rest of his words with her lips on his and it's like nothing in his dreams.

 

It's better.

 

 

 

\-----

 

 

When he finally tells her he loves her, she almost misses it.

 

She's too busy freaking out about her favourite blouse going missing, ranting about how she's going to kill Damon if he stuck it in the wash with the whites, because the colour runs, and what the hell is she supposed to wear now, and she knows she looks crazy standing there in her bra and skirt flapping about.

 

And Stefan isn't helping matters much either as he just grins at her stupidly, before wrapping his arms around her, dropping a kiss on her bare shoulder and laughing into her skin, “God I love you, you're so cute when you get all worked up and mad.”

 

He pulls away when he spots something across the room, “Hey, what about that purple one . . .”

 

It takes a second for her brain to catch up, and she just stands there staring at the back of him as he picks up the top in question.

 

He finally gets a clue when he turns around and catches her expression.

 

He stops still, and scratches his neck, “Did I just . . . ?”

 

She raises her brow, and nods.

 

“Right,” he says, and he could not look more adorable with his deer in headlights expression even if he tried.

 

She makes her way over to him, since he's stuck in place, wraps her arms around his neck and says, “God I love you, you're so cute when you're all oblivious.”

 

His answering smile is beautiful.

 

She plucks the blouse from his hand and throws it over her shoulder on to the floor. She answers his unspoken question with a “We won't be needing that,” and pulls him down with her on to his bed.

 

“I love you,” he says again, this time with complete intent.

 

“Oh I know,” she grins up at him.

 

He shakes his head, and she's helpless against his mock scowl.

 

She smooths it away with her lips over every inch of his face, then pulls back just enough so that the tips of their noses are brushing, and so that she can see his wide eyes focussed solely on her.

 

She makes sure she has his full attention when she finally surrenders.

 

“I love you too.”

 

And it feels glorious.

 

 

 

 

**End.**

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, I honestly have no idea how this went from super dark and angsty to super fluffy in a blink of an eye. If it gave you whiplash, sorry? Also that last scene was entirely inspired by a steroline post I saw somewhere about how Stefan would probably first tell Caroline he loves her without realising it just like how he fell in love with her and I just thought it was the cutest thing and it's not left my head since, so credit to them :-D


End file.
